Roy Hodgson has selected a young and inexperienced England squad which is why
their 34-year captain, Steven Gerrard, is the most important player in
Brazil

Steven Gerrard will know that he is facing his last chance of World Cup glory in Brazil and he will travel to South America believing he can lift the trophy as England captain on July 13.

If you are a world-class footballer, and Gerrard continues to reside in that bracket, it is all about winning, even though it will be a case of his heart ruling his head if he truly believes that England can emerge as winners in Brazil.

Gerrard is 34 now and even if he probably privately accepts that his best chance of success was in Germany in 2006, he will be desperate to drive England as far as they can possibly go this time in order to give the supporters the optimism that it might just be possible.

Yet whatever happens in Brazil, Gerrard will go there as the most important player in Roy Hodgson’s team. Wayne Rooney is obviously key to England’s hopes, but Gerrard is the one who is absolutely crucial for Hodgson because his experience and leadership qualities will count for everything when it all begins against Italy in Manaus.

With Hodgson picking a squad packed with youth and inexperience, Gerrard has become a vital cog. There will be lots of England players making their first appearance in a World Cup, with the likes of Luke Shaw making the jump from the domestic game to the highest level of international football in the space of a couple of months.

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It will be completely new experience for players such as Shaw, Adam Lallana, Raheem Sterling and Ross Barkley. The likes of Jordan Henderson and Daniel Sturridge are also relatively inexperienced on the international stage, too. So Gerrard’s presence will be crucial because he is the guy who has been there and done it.

He has played at the highest level for more than a decade, appeared in two World Cups and made over 100 appearances for his country. He is the captain and the leader and the younger players in the squad will automatically lean on Gerrard to guide them through because, make no mistake, some of them will feel as though they are in No-man’s-land when they are hit with the reality of playing in a World Cup.

In his role as a holding midfielder, Gerrard will be expected to organise and reassure and his presence alone will inspire those around him. One thing for certain is that he will not be affected by what happened withLiverpool in the Premier League towards the end of the season.

People will focus on how the club could not cross the line to win the title and they will also talk about the psychological effects of Steven slipping against Chelsea, but it will be the furthest thing from his mind.

Footballers move on because they have to and Gerrard will only be thinking about the World Cup now. That will have been the case ever since the league season ended.

He will actually go in to the World Cup buoyed by his performances last season, which were hugely impressive throughout the entire campaign. I remember being one of many people who said, back in 2006, that the debate about him dropping into a holding position was pointless because he was too good getting from box-to-box to even consider a more defensive role.

But now that he can no longer do the box-to-box runs of old, he has reinvented himself as a holding midfielder and he was sensational for Liverpool in that role last season. His performances in the red shirt were as good as they had ever been, but there are only so many players in England who could have made the transition so successfully and Gerrard has been absolutely exceptional.

In Brazil, he will give England so much as a holding player because he has many qualities that are often overlooked – qualities which will come to the fore in the heat of Manaus, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte. His tackling ability is better than people give Steven credit for, while he is also a very good header of the ball. His positional sense is as good as anybody’s and his passing range is second to none.

At Liverpool, Henderson’s development last season helped Gerrard to become so adept in the holding position. Henderson has been much-maligned and he will never be another Steven Gerrard from a technical point of view, but he has developed in to a very important player for Liverpool.

If Gerrard chose to make a break forward last season, he could rely on Henderson to drop back and provide cover and that is why the youngster could find himself breaking into Hodgson’s World Cup team.

In 2006 and 2010, the perennial question about how best to accommodate Gerrard and Frank Lampard was never properly answered, but it is not an issue this time. Neither Sven-Goran Eriksson nor Fabio Capello was able to find the right balance because both players preferred to get forward rather than drop back, yet Gerrard’s new role has left Hodgson with different issues to address.

With Sturridge likely to be selected as Rooney’s attacking partner, Roy must find the right player to offer a defensive mindset on the right of midfield, unless he goes all out attack by picking Raheem Sterling. So he will have to choose between James Milner or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, with Lallana likely to play on the left, with Henderson sitting alongside Gerrard in a deeper role.

But Milner aside, when you consider the options available to Hodgson, it lacks top-level experience and that is why Gerrard is so important. With Gerrard in the heart of the team, Hodgson knows he has somebody who can organise and lead and those qualities make the England captain as important as he has ever been.